A Storm Coming
by Louise24601
Summary: Full objectivity negates the very definition of the beautiful. All that is pleasing to the eye is of equal value and can acknowledge no preference. Yet, there is something about the blush of her red-painted lips and poignant black gaze that grips at his very soul.


Chapter 1 The Virgin

Full objectivity negates the very definition of the beautiful. All that is pleasing to the eye is of equal value and can acknowledge no preference. Yet, there is something about the blush of her red-painted lips and poignant black gaze that grips at his very soul.

Sherlock is not accustomed to being distracted by the harmonious features of a pleasant face. His state of imperturbability usually amazes those around him. His mom and dad used to make good-hearted jokes about that. A hazy reminiscence briefly resurfaces from oblivion, a day pertaining to the monotony of his adolescence, when the Holmes family was waiting at the train station, on the first day of the Christmas vacation. They must have been planning a trip to the country. Mycroft was placidly perusing a book for college and Sherlock had been wandering deep in his mind, busy crafting a conundrum which he expected his brother would require at least an hour to solve.

There had been a tall girl, sitting a few rows ahead of them, who in the past ten minutes had looked behind her shoulder twice, flashing her prettiness like something newly purchased.

"Look, Sherlock." Her mother had elbowed him and Sherlock had nearly lost the thread of his thoughts. "Isn't she beautiful?"

"Who is?"

"Lower your tone," she whispered with delight. It would be thrilling for the girl to overhear them, further so if it should trigger an interaction. How reassured she would feel to confirm that her young son was ever so slightly interested in dating. "The girl, sitting in the front row."

No response came from the earnest-looking teenager. In the few seconds that his mother had been quiet, Sherlock had already resumed focusing on his riddle.

"Well?"

Without looking up from his book, Mycroft had let out a pinched breath of air. It was his customary way of expressing discontentment.

"What, mother?" Said Sherlock, somewhat exasperated.

"Isn't she?"

"How should I know?"

"Can't you tell?"

"It's wasted time to focus on things that are altogether useless."

Perhaps he had not been older than twelve, when this conversation had taken place. Most parents are concerned when all that their teenagers think about is going out to meet people their age, but the Holmes boys were a different case.

Truly, Mycroft had done the clever thing, picking a smart decent girl every year or so and giving off an impression of normality to his parents, while Sherlock remained his solitary self. In truth, he was too emotional to keep up a pretense. Tolerating the presence of a companion, only to keep his family's mind at ease, would be far too exacerbating for Sherlock.

As a young boy, he had called beauty "useless", and had meant it for numerous years as a grown man.

Perhaps she is a direct retribution for his arrogance.

A wonder that his own mother ever attempted to make him take an interest in it.

What is the point of beauty, now, if it is not only to counter what he strives towards, to madden what is reasonable, to bring chaos where there is order?

Sherlock sits patiently in his seat, in his 221B Baker Street apartment, while the ever so recognizable ring of his telephone signals another text.

There have been two, this evening. For the past forty-five minutes, he has successfully achieved to look at neither.

It is mere pride, however, that keeps him from reading her texts. Since the tell-tale moan has made itself heard, he has been able to entertain no decent reflection. While he is deliberately avoiding Irene Adler, she is with him, now, forever, in the spirit if not in the flesh, and the former's dominance over the latter is something Sherlock would not think to question.

"Damn her," he says.

He will not look at what she sent him. He reads her moods and whims into every word of each concise message, and she herself can most certainly detect his annoyance.

 _Dear Mr. Holmes. Egypt bores me. Get on a plane. Let's have dinner._

 _Dear Mr. Holmes. A penny for your thoughts. They're probably worth more. Let's say a dinner._

 _I'm not hungry. Dear Mr. Holmes –_

"Let's have dinner." Sherlock gets on his feet promptly and grabs the coat hanging at the back of his chair. In less than fifteen seconds and a few lively steps, he's out of his apartment, down the narrow staircase and out into the greyish streets of London, where rain is pouring in nearly biblical proportions and all that can be seen of passers-by is a variety of umbrellas. Sherlock hasn't got one.

There is a pub, just across the street, where he and Watson sometimes go to grab a bite. It's not yet five in the afternoon but Sherlock goes in, all the same, to have dinner. What he orders is meaningless and what the owner serves him is the archetype of mediocre English cookery. It does little to stimulate a fresh set of thoughts and even less to distract him.

What Sherlock thinks is: what is she thinking?

That red smile rules over his burning mind and order won't be restored. Sherlock often wonders what his brother would think of all this – no doubt, it would strike Mycroft as utterly unfathomable, much as it would have struck Sherlock before Irene Adler, before he was given to understand the power that the people we want wield over us. The wanted are all powerful. But Sherlock will not be held in bondage, will fight against this wanting sooner than he will surrender to it.

 _To the death!_ Was the battle cry of English soldiers when war was being waged. Or was it, _For queen and country?_

The television set in the back of the room proves a better source of distraction. The news program is unusual enough, in this sort of place, and what it covers is unusually interesting itself. The notable increase of crime in England, in the past few years. _Ah_. Jim Moriarty is getting impatient. Terrorist unrest is breaking loose. There is a storm coming, Sherlock thinks. _An East wind_.

He should be excited by this, he usually is, but today he lacks the vigor, the enthusiasm he used to have for danger, for thrill.

"Not a safe time for England, is it?" The bartender says to him.

Sherlock says nothing back, but his head is in full agreement, his thoughts are running wild.

 _Whose side will you be on, Irene, will you let me save you, this time? Will you save me?_


End file.
